Sometimes it isn't the government that's to blame for back door deals. Back in 1869, two wily financiers, Jay Gould and James Fisk, thought they could outsmart the government and corner the gold market, but were foiled by the administration. Gould and Fisk tried to buy massive amounts of gold at a low price and then sell high using insider information.

Canada's Senators are Canada's Lords and Ladies and, as such, are held to a lower standard than anyone else. Like nobles everywhere, they are immune from sanctions even when it comes to bad behaviour. This is, needless to say, extremely debilitating in a so-called democracy.

Canada's sleepy and dysfunctional "board of directors/content providers", aka its Senate, thrives without justification and without an audience. Its shareholders, and CEO Stephen Harper, disdain the place and yet it continues. The best course of action is for our Prime Minister to become the political equivalent of a hedge fund manager. His job is to enhance shareholder value and there's no better course of action than to ignore threats of litigation by Quebec, stop the losses to reputation and treasure and shut this national embarrassment down immediately.

Every year, we put on a poppy, read a few feel-good stories about the surviving Second World War veterans, and maybe observe a moment of silence on the 11th. But veterans' news stories disappear almost immediately and are replaced with tales of holiday consumer-orgies. We should not be so quick to forget them.

Despite a candidate's high profile and past accomplishments, due process still includes background checks in terms of resumes. It's the board's responsibility, not that of human resources, to make sure candidates are who they say they are. Transparency is key, and as we've seen in the case of Yahoo, those who do not abide by the rules do so at their own peril.